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How do you input a number like that?
by Mirioron 8y ago
How do you input a number like that?
- occamschainsaw 8y agoUsing the old timey keyboard layout[1] (a relic of pre-touchscreen phones) So 1800-flowers would be 1800-3569377 [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.161 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.161
- Mirioron 8y agoSo that's what the letters were for on phone keyboards.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoThe use for vanity numbers is a later development. Originally the three digit exchange "number" in North America was identified by a three letter code. On a phone with no dial you'd tell the operator the exchange codeword and the four digit number within the exchange if you didn't want to manually pulse the switchhook. For automatic switch dialed calls, the dial needed to also be marked for these letter codes so you didn't need to use a separate reference for the corresponding digit.
- govg 8y agoA lot of phones come with the English alphabet on the 12 keys, three letters to a key. Similar to older phones that had a physical dialpad. You could then dial the "word" you want by looking at the number on which the correct letter is. That's one way these systems could work.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoOn many (American) phone keypads, 1 is blank, 2 is A, or B, or C, 3 is DEF, 4 is GHI, 5 is JKL, 6 is MNO, 7 is PQRS, 8 is TUV, and 9 is WXYZ. So for FLOWERS you'd see that the F is on 3, L is on 5, O is on 6, etc. to get 356-9377. Note that both R and S are on 7, they map to the same number, so different words are likely to all map to the same number, like "Roses" and "Ropes". Companies sometimes use longer or shorter numbers: you might see a number written with left-padded numbers, like "1-800-1FLOWER", for which you'd dial 1-800-135-6937. You might also see longer words, like 1-800-ARRANGEMENTS..you could type in 1-800-277-2643 63687, but the extra letters would just go into the recipient's PBX (like dialing an extension) and get discarded.
- Mirioron 8y agoI see. TIL and thank you!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]